INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Recycling Coalition (IRC) recently received a $50,000 Food Waste Solution Search Grant, a program of The Closed Loop Foundation, in partnership with the Walmart Foundation, who fund research and development of technologies and business models focused on building the circular economy. The IRC, and seven other recipients, were selected from a national pool of over 150 applicants.
ReFED, a data-driven organization formed to tackle food waste, estimates that “American consumers, businesses, and farms spend $218 billion a year…growing, processing, transporting, and disposing food that is never eaten.” That amounts to “52 million tons of food sent to landfill annually (21% of landfill volume)…Meanwhile, one in seven Americans is food insecure.”
The IRC will use the funds to build up the collection infrastructure and economies of scale for food waste recovery through the implementation of a Commercial Food Composting Program in Indianapolis. The IRC will establish an efficient collection route among large commercial generators of food waste (targeting universities, museums, markets, hunger-relief organizations, hospitals, and others). Initially, the IRC will partner with Ray’s Trash & Recycling to haul the food waste and with GreenCycle of Indiana to compost the material. Thus far, IUPUI and Butler University are committed to participation and have generously leveraged funding towards the program.
To make the program more attractive to potential partners, the IRC will offset additional hauling costs for program partners over the one year grant term, in addition to providing educational, training, and material resources tailored to each partner’s needs. Interested commercial entities may contact the IRC for more information.